


53rd? Undying

by MetasActReon



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst?, Carlos Dies, Carlos is Cursed, Carlos suffers, Cecil Might be Human or Inhuman, Death, Ep:25 spoilers, M/M, Slight South Park references, Some Cursing, Sort Of, The Kenny McCormick Dilemma, angsty? fluff, fluff?, fluffy? angst, science why you no explain, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 13:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13705326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetasActReon/pseuds/MetasActReon
Summary: Cecil breaks down over the loss of Carlos over the radio while Carlos wishes he could convince the radio host everything will be alright. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.(You do not need to know anything of South Park to read this. In fact, South Park is only an inspiration and in no way involved with this story.)





	53rd? Undying

**Author's Note:**

> In another fanfic, one with an inhuman Carlos, I read something along the lines of ‘Carlos survived a year in Night Vale. I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't human.’ This got me thinking, ‘What if he didn't survive?’ Because, seriously, we only hear of him really getting into any serious trouble once in that first year... which is actually on the anniversary of his arrival. Here we have a man from normal mundania (where science works) who is in the thick of things in Night Vale (where science rarely works) trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and nothing bad seems to happen to him. We would know. Cecil would tell us. So, my mind thought of South Park’s Kenny, and the crap he goes through that no one remembers. Here's my brain child.

    “Listeners, I... I can't... Listeners... Car... Carlos... He's... I can't... I-I’m trapped in my booth... and he's blee-bleeding out...”

    Carlos heart ached at the heartbroken words, the loss, the grief... “C-Cecil... Don't-” he flinched at the pain of moving, realizing he had been reaching out towards the radio nearby. Why was there a radio nearby? Why was there always a radio nearby?

    He hated this. He hated lying there dying from a freaking librarian’s wound. He hated dying slowly. If death was inevitable, make it happen fast at least. There was no point in suffering. Most of all, he hated hearing the pain in Cecil's voice. “Th-things will be alright,” Carlos gasped, even though the radio host was in an entirely different building 3 blocks away, “...you'll see.”

    Carlos thought of the child he had hopefully saved from the attack. The way she clutched at her book once the librarian had her cornered. Oh, yeah, book. Carlos wasn’t going to get a chance to take The History of Random Holes to the lab. He hoped that if another scientist was sent they wouldn’t experience the same fate.

    “Curse this town! Curse that librarian! Curse this booth! Curse it all!” Cecil cried in anger at everything, at himself, at the delicate strings of everyone’s lives.

    Carlos dryly laughed. He had to agree with Cecil on that.

 

. . .

 

    Carlos opened his eyes, the light filtering through his blinds and blinding him, a reminder that he was alive.  _ Yay. _ He pulled the covers down and glanced at his body, finding it nude. He shook his head and grabbed the lab coat he kept near his bed.

    Carlos stood up, pulling the lab coat on, and began his morning routine. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, he set some wheat and wheat by product free bread up to toast before going to his bedroom to collect some clothes for the day. Once he had something decent and clean enough, he headed to the bathroom. While brushing his hair he tentatively touched his stomach. Nothing. No pain, no hole, just soft dark skin. Like always, it was like his body had never been damaged.

    He pulled out his phone and pulled up the broadcast from yesterday. He fastforworded and stopped a minute before the radio host's breakdown. He listened closely. A little girl who had wandered into the library to get a book on ancient Roman curses had miraculously survived and escaped... No mention of a certain scientist. 

    Carlos shuddered. It was just like elementary school. Back then he'd been so accident prone. His friends had seen him die in so many ways, but they never remembered. Carlos sighed, nowadays he knew to keep everyone at a distance because he hated seeing their reactions, because who would believe him if he he told them he respawns every damn time back into his own bed, whichever the curse decided was his bed at the time being. -

    Carlos returned to the kitchen and prepared his sad wheatless toast before sitting down and only half listening to the rest of the broadcast to find out what else happened yesterday.

    - Now, the radio host of the most dangerous town that ever existed had the biggest high school level crush on him and every time Carlos was killed, Cecil's voice would break his heart. He loved listening to the broadcast, though listening in wasn’t really an option since every radio played Cecil’s show once it was on. Carlos loved it right until Cecil broke down when Carlos died... yet again.

    Carlos flipped through his phone and made a few talleys and wrote down his latest cause of death. Since he turned 17 he had picked up a morbid habit of tracking how many times he had died and how. In the 18 years before Night Vale, he had died 107 times from: random murder, muggings, car accidents, venomous bites, suffocating on dinner, drowning, falling down stairs, a fire, a few lab accidents, a robbery, as well as many other more mundane occurrences. Dying wasn't pleasant, so he actually tried his best to not die. -

    Carlos finished breakfast, returned to the bathroom and brushed his teeth.

    - Since arriving at Night Vale a year ago, he had died 52 times. He went from approximately getting killed once every two months to once every five days, all because he moved. In Night Vale he had been killed by: monsters, falling carcasses, teleporting to space (he barely noticed the few stars and mostly void before he died instantly, it seemed his consciousness got there before his body had,) the Secret Police, mass hysteria, suicide (after coming into contact with an excruciatingly painful substance death seemed to be the only way to fix his senses,) Fucking. Wheat. Bread., several lab accidents, a pack of feral dogs, street cleaners (he can't remember the experience at all, his memory seemed to have been cleaned as well, and he only clued things together from Cecil’s broadcast of that day,) Valentine's day, being turned inside out by a thing, a gun his double had had (where said double was now, who the hell knew,) and many other equally improbable situations.

    He sighed, got dressed, and headed off to work. His work was his life. At least he didn't feel bad when science didn't remember that he was suppose to be dead, the petri dishes and flasks rarely had anything to say here and didn’t really care who they were saying things to when they had something to say. Carlos just wished science would help explain the biggest question he has always had,  _ 'Why?' _

 

. . .

 

    Today Carlos decided to look further into this unfelt earthquake phenomena, as well as get to the bottom of this underground-city-that-was-at-war-with-Night-Vale thing. With some hand held machines he strolled into the pin retrieval area at lane five alone. He looked closely at the tunnel walls, trying to see any type of spatial or non-spatial separation between the ground of Night Vale and what should be the crust of the rest of the world.  _ Great, my hypotheses aren’t even that scientific anymore. _

    He saw the city, and, when he went to investigate it, a small rock fell and the sound was too loud, too soon. Carlos realized the most probable explanation. The hole’s bottom was close and the city was miniscule. He was amazed at how ridiculous this all was. So, when he had collected a group of people, he went to show off just how silly their fears were. He didn't even stop to think,  _ 'Wow, this is what could kill me for the second day in a row.’ _

    Next to add to causes of death, an attack by an army filled with warriors the size of his pinky finger.

    “I can't... I'm still holding this trophy...”

    “... I'm sorry, Cecil,” Carlos whispered, bleeding out amongst the city that fell him, hating when he hurt Cecil like this so soon after the last. His consciousness blurred and he was gone.

 

. . .

 

    “Ah Carlos! All the words I would have never said to you!”

_     Huh, that voice is cheery, _ Carlos thought, coming to.  _ Why am I hearing his voice? _

    He opened his eyes and peered around.

    He was... where?

    He tried to sit up.

    “Careful, Carlos,” Teddy steadied him. “You nearly died there.”

    “Well, yes,” Carlos rasped, his throat feeling dry.  _ Wait, Teddy remembered? Wait, nearly? _ He tried to listen to Cecil's voice in the background. 

    The Voice of Night Vale was saying something about the Apache Tracker... “Carlos breathes and soon the Apache Tracker will not.”

    Carlos’s eyes widened.  _ Shit.  _ Throwing off the didn’t-die haze (what he called the confused state he found himself in whenever he was successfully revived from death and had not woken up in his bed like usual,) Carlos jumped up. “Where's the Tracker? Where-”

    “Right over there,” Teddy whispered, pointing. Carlos ran over, not caring about the pain, not caring about Teddy’s protest, not caring about the pain. (Ok, he cared a little. He hated pain, but he was use to it.) The Apache Tracker looked bloodied and burnt and just  _ bad _ .

    “No... nonononono.” Carlos grabbed his hand. “Stupid... you should've let me die... I can't die,” he whispered. That made 4 people he's ever told. No one else had believed him, but now this man lay dying because he didn't know.

    The Apache Tracker gave a weak shrug.

    The Man in the Tan Jacket grabbed his other hand. The Tracker announced something in Russian, something that Carlos’s brain just turned into a blank space of noise; as The Man in the Tan Jacket wiped a tear from his own face. And, then, The Apache Tracker died.

 

. . .

 

    Carlos leaned against a chair in front of the lanes. Someone had sacrificed their life to save him. That was the first time someone had died trying to needlessly save him. Who would do that? Who would even think that he was worth it?

_     Cecil. _

    Carlos's heart sank. If Cecil had been able to prevent any of the scientist’s deaths, he would have, even at the cost of his own. Carlos swallowed and pulled out his phone.

[I want to see you. Meet me at the Arby's parking lot.]

    Carlos slipped out of the bowling alley, got into his car, and went straight to the Arby's. Yeah, it wasn’t that far, it was practically across the street, but walking hurt. He sat on his trunk, gingerly applying pressure to his reopened wound. Usually he was dead before he had much of a chance to actually feel around, so now he was dealing with that horrible ordeal most people had with bruises. He just couldn’t stop poking at it, as if it would soon be gone, that is, until Cecil arrived.

    “What is it?” Cecil asked, shifting his weight between his feet. He looked nervous, but also relieved. “Wha–what danger are we in? ... What mystery needs to be explored?”

    Carlos shook his head, slightly amused. After all of the flirtatious foot bumps and comments over the year during purely professional coffee meetings, Cecil had now decided to actually stay professional. “Nothing,” Carlos sighed. “After everything that happened…I just wanted to see you.” He was careful with his wordings. He knew he should be nervous, even more so than Cecil, but right now he just felt... calm.

    Cecil's eyes seemed to glow and a huge smile erupted on his face. “Oh?” his voice trembled.

    Carlos breathed a little heavily from his nose, suppressing a laugh, before looking away from Cecil. His eyes settled on the sunset. Carlos furrowed his brow a little. “I used to think it was setting at the wrong time, but then I realized that time doesn’t work in Night Vale,” he muttered, before adding with a small laugh, “and that none of the clocks are real... Sometimes things seem so strange, or malevolent, and then you find that, underneath, it was something else altogether. Something pure... and innocent.”

    “I know what you mean,” Cecil nodded. Carlos relaxed even further in the radio host’s presence, which he hadn’t thought was possible. Cecil had lived in Night Vale probably all his life, after all. He had to be use to the strange and unusual, he was probably raised on it.

    Carlos went quiet, unsure of how to continue on. Cecil sat next to him on the trunk. It was nice having such closeness after so long of staying distant from everyone. Before he knew it, his hand was resting comfortably on Cecil's knee and Cecil's head was resting comfortably on his shoulder. Carlos was human, after all, and having nice human contact was something even undying humans needed.

    They watched the lights above Arby's, finding a moment of limitless contentment in each other's company.

    “I... I need to go finish the broadcast,” Cecil stated after a short eternity.

    “I know,” Carlos sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Cecil... I have something to tell you...”

    “Yes?” Cecil lifted his head off Carlos’s shoulder to look at him.

    Carlos suddenly felt self conscious. The calm that had overtaken him was now gone. How could he get it back? How long would it take to get it back? But he needed to do this, and he needed to do it now.

    The scientist took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Ok, maybe blood loss was affecting him a little. Maybe he would die after all from blood loss? If this turned out bad he could always just end his life again to erase the happenings from this day. The thought helped him regain his confidence. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and began. “That was the 29th time I heard you report my dying... nearly the 53rd time I've died in Night Vale...”

    “... What?”

    “I... I can't die... well, that's not really, not, well, not accurate,” the scientist stumbled, now unable to look Cecil straight on. He sounded crazy, he must have. Even here people did not just come back from dying with absolutely no reason whatsoever. “I can't stay dead,” Carlos finally continued, letting the words just fall from his mouth. Someone may have to clean them up later, but he wasn’t thinking about that right now. “I always wake up in my bed after dying, as if nothing happened. No one remembers what I was doing or did that caused my death. Just yesterday I helped a girl escape the library, and no one remembers! Hell, your broadcast doesn't even record that you had broken down in a fit of tears sobbing over it. I can't take it. It's like I'm insane and I have nothing to prove it, but I have died hundreds and hundreds of times,” Carlos sobbed. “I can't... I can't take this!”

    Cecil wrapped his arms around the scientist whose body was shuddering with sobs. “That sounds horrible,” he whispered.

    “And if you... if you would just stop I'd appreciate it. I hate hearing you break down every time-  _ sob _ -every time I don’t die instantly.”

    “Alright, I'll try,” Cecil stated sincerely. Carlos pulled back a little and looked the man in the eyes. “You... believe me?” He sniffled.

    “Why would you lie?”

    Carlos's heart leaped, and he realized he had fallen in love.

    “... I-I, uh... I guess you don’t want this then, huh?” Cecil asked miserably, breaking the hug and pulling out a trophy from who knows where.

    “I... That... What?” Carlos stuttered, wiping tears from his face.

    “I got it for you, since you survived a whole year... Which I guess isn’t true.”

    Carlos shook his head. What was he going to do with ~~his d~~ \-  _ this _ dork. Lightly blushing from his internal mistake, and scratching out his own thought somehow, Carlos held out his hand. “Thank you... I guess I kinda did survive the whole year, since I, uh, survive death and all.”

 

. . .

 

    “Mm, how was yesterday,” Cecil muttered from the bed as Carlos went to go prepare Cecil’s morning coffee.

    Carlos shuddered under his morning lab coat. “You have every right to fear Station Management. Did you get that time off? I really could use a week away from here. I almost miss dying from something as simple as getting hit by a drunk driver.”

    Cecil shook his head. “You actually died... I could've sworn you escaped before me,” he yawned.

    “That is how it always works.”

    “I know. But you escape more often than not.” Cecil scrunched his face in sleepy concentration. “I guess I should've figured that out. I can't remember seeing you after that all day, and you shouldn't have been working that late in the lab.”

    Carlos gave the groggy radio host’s forehead a soft kiss, right above the third eye. “Thanks for not breaking down yesterday. You nearly came to my rescue but you didn't. Thank you.”

    “Well, I didn't think that being assimilated into Station Management would be considered a death,” Cecil muttered abashed. Even if he couldn’t remember, he still felt guilty for nearly breaking Carlos’s direct orders.

    “I guess it does,” Carlos shrugged. “Did you get the permission?”

    “Yep,” Cecil grinned tiredly. “One hopefully death free week a month from now, wherever you decide you want us to go.”

    “Thank the old gods.”

**Author's Note:**

> For one of the fanfictions that was competing to make itself first on my AO3 account, I'm actually pretty glad this one won. It's not something I've really seen done before and I'm pretty proud of it. It's suppose to be a one shot (I have other Cecilos stuff that my mind headcanons more commonly, but it is also more commonly written about so doesn’t stand out as much) but I may return to this again because... It's fun to write deaths, especially when they don't break your own heart. Besides, “I can’t... That monster! They killed Carlos,” is a line I would actually like to fit in somewhere as an ode to Kenny.  
> Oh well.  
> Going on.  
> ‘His dork’ was actually a typo at first. I had to turn it into an embarrassing thought once I caught it. Yay for great typos!  
> Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment/kudos/show support. If you want more with this headcanon, tell me. I’m a slut for fans.
> 
> P.S. I just... I love picturing Carlos’s voice with a lot of this piece. Just, that nerdy caramel voice saying ‘yay’ (I know it was a thought, but it was his thought) with as much sarcasm and angst that he can muster breaks me. I’m in a fit of giggles as I type this.


End file.
